On September 9 last year, Nepal’s Gen Z uprising brought down the government of K.P. Sharma Oli. Seventy-six people lost their lives. The faces in power changed.

A younger generation moved to the centre of politics as parties and leaders that had dominated Nepal for decades were pushed aside. Balendra Shah became prime minister at the age of 36. The relatively new Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) formed a government with nearly a two-thirds majority. More young people entered parliament. The old mainstream parties were left badly weakened. It was a remarkable political shift, and one that happened very quickly. South Asia does not often see changes of this scale.

But a year later, the more difficult question is whether Nepal’s political system has changed as much as its political leadership has.

From the outside, the past year suggests profound political change in Nepal. Yet, step slightly away from Kathmandu’s corridors of power, and the landscape looks far less novel. One year on, Nepal faces an even more critical question: does changing the faces of the political elite truly alter the underlying political settlement?

This question is not coming only from the political forces that lost power. Some of those injured in the uprising, families of those killed and people who were part of the Gen Z movement are asking it as well. Many say they still do not see enough of the change they took to the streets for.

The Gen Z movement was not simply about replacing one government with another. It was also about changing the way the state was run.

One of the main complaints against Nepal’s old political parties was that they concentrated power, used state institutions for partisan interests and rewarded people for connections rather than merit. The “Nepo Kid” slogan that became popular during the movement was really an attack on that political culture.

Yet similar complaints have surfaced under Balendra Shah’s government.

The RSP had promised to keep nepotism out of its own political structure. But questions were raised after family members of people close to the prime minister were appointed to government positions. There have also been allegations that people close to those in power have been placed in different state institutions.

Each of these cases may be defended as an exception. But that is also how old systems become normal. Political patronage is rarely built through one single dramatic act. It grows when smaller exceptions are accepted again and again.

Accountability has become another concern.

The government came to power with an overwhelming majority in parliament. There is nothing wrong with a strong government. Nepal has gone through years of political instability, and a stable majority can give a government the space it needs to carry out reforms.

But a large majority can also become a problem if the government begins to feel that parliamentary scrutiny matters less.

Prime Minister Shah has faced criticism over his attendance in parliament and his willingness to answer opposition questions. By August, he had attended only six of parliament’s 41 sittings.

Furthermore, the quorum required for Constitutional Council decisions was lowered via ordinance. The government defended this move as a way to unblock long-stalled appointments, but it effectively cleared a path for the Prime Minister and a small faction of allies to push through appointments to critical constitutional posts with minimal consensus.

If a new political leadership returns to the same methods, then the fact that it belongs to a younger generation starts to matter less. There is also the question of everyday governance. The old scenes have not disappeared: long queues for passports and driving licences, shortages of gas, uncertainty among farmers over fertiliser and young Nepalis continuing to leave the country in search of work.

These are not easy problems, and it would be unfair to expect all of them to disappear within a year. But they matter because anger over exactly these everyday failures helped fuel the Gen Z uprising in the first place.

Nepal’s new leaders came to power because people were angry with the old system. That means expectations of them are higher than they would be of an ordinary government. They also cannot keep blaming the problems they inherited forever. They came to power by promising to change that system. If they end up running the state by the same old rules, history may remember this period as a change in who held power, not a change in how power worked.

That is why the success of Nepal’s Gen Z uprising cannot ultimately be measured by Balendra Shah’s age or by the size of the RSP’s parliamentary majority.

The real test is much simpler.

Are ordinary people receiving better services from the state? Are young people finding more opportunities at home? Can parliament and constitutional institutions still hold the executive to account?

One year on, the answers are not yet very encouraging.

Mahafuz Rahaman is a journalist and a writer.

[The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of The Daily Bonik Barta or the organisation they work for.]